Sunday, April 5, 2015

Your quote from Castoriadis comes as close to a modern day meaning of "Logos" as I have ever seen, or the meaning that passes between you and I. Of course, from a non dual view, there is no separation between you and I and the Logos becomes the harmony of being. Imagination in the same instance, both duality and no duality require imagination. But the non dual approach requires what Neville termed "awakened" imagination and Blake saw as imagination enlivened with spirit. Indeed, an enormous amount of imagination is required to fracture a personality into multiple alters. But all this is done in separation. The awakened imagination unifies and integrates all aspects of being into spirit.

Even the science and critique has served to move us to a place where technology extends us and unifies us without awakening. From my view, that only makes the awakening sweeter. We all grow up moving through states and stages in a spiral of awakening (or not.) Even those blessed souls that are born pure and awakened must grow to understand that divine principle within and sustain the harmony it offers through the suffering inherent in life. How do we maintain harmony in the midst of suffering? Joseph Campbell tells us that we simply connect with the eternal within us, and that is that. This simple act requires awakened imagination.

On Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 5:41:34 PM UTC-4, archytas wrote:

There is no desiring without imagination. (Aristotle, De Anima, 433b p. 29)

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination. (John Keats, Letter to Benjamin Bailey, 22 November 1817)

Why could we not start by positing a dream, a poem, a symphony as paradigmatic of the fullness of being and by seeing in the physical world a different mode of being, instead of looking at things the other way round, instead of seeing in the imaginary – that is, human – mode of existence, a deficient or secondary mode of being? (Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, 1987, p. 5)

In Castoriadis's own words: 'what makes a word what it is, meaning-wise, is its overtones, its resonances and

consonances' (Castoriadis, 2007, p. 43). He offers a very illustrative example of the creative potentiality

of such melodic overtones in his analysis of Shakespearean texts and the poetry of Rilke:

The melody of the meaning is the horizontal relation between the meanings and the intensity of the

particular words in their succession, which already in itself contains a harmonic component. For, just as,

when one hears the end of a melody, its musical substance includes what preceded it, so the deployment of

the meaning in a poetic phrase, which constitutes in itself a temporal form, culminates in a term that is

what it is only as a function of everything that came beforehand. The harmony of the meaning seems to be,

strictly speaking, an illogical expression, since harmony is the consonance of several voices and because

the poem – more generally, a linguistic expression – seems monodic. But there is harmony because there

are harmonics of the words' significations…

And continues:

[harmony is] certainly inseparable from the listener, from the concrete audience, but this is also and

especially 'impersonally' deposited in language. A word can function in language only by means of these

indefinite referrals, each one of which engages and sets in motion other referrals. The harmonic richness

of a line is made from the richness of the referrals of the words that compose it. (Castoriadis, 2007, p. 71)

The metaphorical force of 'narrowly imagined' concepts such as that of 'growth' in economics, regarding our ability to break with established political economy frames. Lakoff (2010), a cognitive linguist, argues that a real break with those frames can only exist in the employment of a radically different metaphorical frame that goes beyond negation (evidenced in anti-growth policies) or appropriation (as is often the case in green growth), but rather posits entirely new concepts for guiding policy, such as that of well-being.

Organizations are imagined not merely in the sense that what shapes them is 'known but cannot be told' (Castoriadis, 1987, p. 43) or 'be made explicit', but that what is known is actually and continuously represented, signified and affected by those making up the organization. Some of these representations/significations/affects are indeed explicit and may include scientific data and mathematical figures. Yet it is not our inability to 'translate' that stifles creative imagination in practice, but a failure of individuals, organizations and societies to lucidly recognize their ownership of those figures/meanings/ emotions. This radical position is at the heart of the Castoriadian notion of imagination: creativity is already there, albeit hand in hand with the obfuscation that prevents its lucid recognition in the psyche and society. It also enables us to re-signify and reimagine organizations and organizing differently, suggesting that critique is not all we have in dealing with these limits. Through the Castoriadian ontology we are better able to imagine the form that such reconfigurations might take in organizing, not simply as a challenge of instituted (individualized, 'psychologized', or rationalized) reality, but moreover as active carriers of new legitimacies, creating organizational contexts that 'search for their own foundations'

Not everything that comes out of the imagination is good. Most can't even do critique (imagining it negative) let alone get to 'imagine that' on how a new scenario might work. Science has been working for a couple of centuries by excluding dull idiots like the worst religionists and politicians from the laboratory. Getting people out of the way to progress society in general is tougher. Give them the chance to choose between Democrat and GOP and they imagine they are free. Ho, ho ho ...

On Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 9:43:29 PM UTC+1, archytas wrote:

There are a lot of books about on more imaginative approaches. This is typical:

Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. The Jossey-Bass Education Series.

Greene, Maxine

The essays in this book are the author's attempt to connect her own seeking with the strivings of other teachers and teacher educators who are tired of a self-centered, technocratic existence and who want to enhance their understanding of diversity. The essays concentrate on imagination as a means through which to assemble a coherent world, because imagination is what makes empathy possible and what allows people to enter others' worlds (e.g., through poetry or music). Moving from an account of school restructuring to a rendering of the shapes of literacy, the book examines the processes of human questioning and resistance to meaninglessness. Part 1, "Creating Possibilities," includes: (1) "Seeking Contexts"; (2) "Imagination, Breakthroughs, and the Unexpected"; (3) "Imagination, Community, and the School"; (4) "Discovering a Pedagogy"; (5) "Social Vision and the Dance of Life"; and (6) "The Shapes of Childhood Recalled." Part 2, "Illuminations and Epiphanies," includes: (7) "The Continuing Search for Curriculum"; (8) "Writing To Learn"; (9) "Teaching for Openings"; (10) "Art and Imagination"; and (11) "Texts and Margins." Part 3, "Community in the Making," includes: (12) "The Passions of Pluralism"; (13) "Standards, Common Learnings, and Diversity"; and (14) "Multiple Voices and Multiple Realities." (SM)

No doubt I should be ashamed to know even this a a scientist. A mug like me just looks for the on and off switches.

On Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 6:27:08 PM UTC+1, Allan Heretic wrote:

I think that is what they are reporting/promoting everything is going via wire.. What i don't like is the lack of creative programers capitable of truly creative programing.. most of them are not much more than line fillers ,, filling in only segments. . Creative but not very original. . Creativity is extremely difficult. .

The eco advantages for the environment are great.. with advances in airship technology will be of great advantages especially in fuel economy .. the elite of the world are recklessly using resources to the detriment of the rest of the world.. internet can become a world saver..

Failing eyesight makes the zoom feature a blessing. I now prefer electronic text to paper. Pity electronic speech is so dire and difficult to speed read with (some blind colleagues have got used to listening at speeds I can't).

I wish Molly was right on the move to something more spiritual, but research suggests a big physical element in electronic receptions. I'm not sure the imagination button is switched on n most people, and soon we will have products for all kinds of physical simulation to go with the mobile.

On Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 9:50:27 AM UTC+1, Allan Heretic wrote:

Thank you. Sleep allows the brain to reset. . My episodes are always early morning. . 5 - 7 am. Figures other than to me they are very boring. . As it is adult onset.. i am wondering if my smart phones ae part of the problem. If i really want to read a document i prefer a combo of paper / electronic.. I like human content. . My preference a cuppa coffee / tea sitting around a table talking with friends. . The Internet will do. And is nice for long distances.. and is convenient as you can answer when up.. i always turn my phone to airplane mode while sleeping.

I do think the internet is slowly down the ability to think.. to much us being passed off as truth when in reality it is a lot of cut and paste .. i am left wondering if the are not basting a idea from a bad recipe.

The older i get the longer it takes to recover. And they run in cycles. . Unfortunately medication is only sliwing them and cutting severity. But that is better than raw.. The poery is only madness running thu my head hooe it is not to crazy

I have a dislike for episodes. . One thing is they are not gòd for clarity of thought.. but one good thing it was lite. Problem is I have been having them for msy many years even befor I came to Europe.. i always thought of them as severe nightmares. It is good to know . . . I think..

Despite imagination Allan, I have never been able to regard meeting a bloke as a date. The way round this seems to be not dating in order to be gender balanced. Never liked the performances anyway. Tired today, i that 'after 'flu' way. Looking forward to dog walk being less of a trudge and no throbbing pains in my left eye and head. Instructions to buy Ginger Wine for hot toddies.

I agree all that Molly and it all expands into several books - though really one can only create the conditions for a trail every so often. This would be worth talking through, though most spirits are too weak to try.

I'll try again if Max leaves me any energy and the toddies don't get too overwhelming. May just let them. Much of what needs saying is not in the public domain, which is odd given how easy much of it is.

On Friday, 3 April 2015 12:33:14 UTC+1, Molly wrote:

I will take my carbon dating as a compliment as I think the age of reason our downfall. We only seemed to have an inkling about how our extension through technology would bring us back through it where reasonable paradigms don't work for us, and as close as we can get to a working model is again mystic. Not to say reason is thrown aside. It must be integrated and given its mechanical function so we can move into something greater, having been hijacked for too long and used in the power and control games. We are more than mental, but are beaten with it until we give it all up to merely survive, our self image blown to smithereens

For too long, no one recognized the magician of the beautiful, those that move naturally and leave beauty in their wake. We've lost our ability to recognize beauty, having been drenched in mundane by deteriorating culture and technology. But something has come of it. And there are those among us that move in action of the divine principle within, and those among us that can recognize the beauty that surrounds them and envelops us. If we can let go of the need to know why, and move along in this action, we can be taken where paradigms are no longer necessary. I am not sure if a group can be carried along, or if we, moving in action of the divine principle within, move with the world as it is in perfection, accepting the imperfection as inherent to the divine principle, knowing the imperfection is changing into perfection through the action. Maybe its always been like this. Maybe it always will be.

On Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 5:52:32 PM UTC-4, archytas wrote:

I had a nice afternoon. Turned a bar in Manchester into an old-style tavern with folk singing and a free barrel of Old Peculiar. The themes were about returning to Greek and Medieval notions of rationality, which have long struck me as in need of a few beers to get into. Debate went so well I hardly needed to say anything.

The Greeks were all over the place around the relevant time, in Italy and around the Med. This was the time of the of what Hans Joas dubbed "cosmic religion" of late Antiquity, a fusion of Greek cosmological speculation. Babylonian astrology, Egyptian theology, Jewish thought and popular magic. There were many attempts to translate this into political constitutions. Most of this was put to the Roman sword, and intellectuals became mystic, aspiring to find new ways to transcend earthly systems entirely, rising through planetary spheres, purging themselves of materiality to pure reason - that human reason that is simply the action of a divine principle within us. Rationality here becomes beyond spiritual to the mystical achievement of union with he divine. In the absence of Molly, we did the internal warming of Old Peculiar and some Lancashire Folk.

So why look to the past like this? The simple answer is that our present is still full of it.

The second area we looked at once the beer was going down was the Medieval. You need to be half-cut to take what went on then. One of the strongest features of this time concerns just how humans consider themselves superior and different to animals. We are still taught this crap as kids - 'it's rationality stupid'. Cue some cute pictures of animals problem solving and being very rational (lions hunting at night is a real killer). And a run out for Allan's soul, with a slight twist. What separates humans and animals is that humans can imagine they possess an immortal soul. If the soul is the seat of reason, to say humans are in possession of one is to say we are rational creatures.

You need the top shelf now, as these forms of religiosity are the basis of bureaucracy and rationality. Descartes becomes spiritual and mystic. The question, of course, is whether we can escape. It's bank holiday here on Friday. This brings discussion of the archaeology of "heroic societies" other than just the Attic tragedy kind, as engines of the self-aggrandising story.

By the end (people fly home Tuesday) we hope to be able to talk new economic, perhaps find some partnerships to write something different - or not write and think of different things to do. After a couple of pints, I was imagining dating Molly and Allan in about 500 BC to 1500 AD.